Matt Johnson is on a hot streak — the gems in his filmography include “BlackBerry” and “Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie.” He loves improv and shooting on the fly, which keeps his films exciting and fresh.
He now has another winner with “Tony,” a light, summer-soaked Anthony Bourdain “biopic.” The quotation marks are fitting, since the film plays less like a traditional biopic and more like a slice-of-life story. It could actually make for a nice double bill with Jim Rash and Nat Faxon’s “The Way Way Back.”
The embargo has lifted on “Tony,” and the reviews have been uniformly positive: some are raves, while others offer milder appreciation: IndieWire (B), Screen, The Wrap, The Film Stage, ScreenRant, The Globe and Mail, THR, Slant (3/4), IGN (9/10), Slash Film (7/10), Variety, The Guardian (3/5). The film currently sits at 75 on Metacritic and 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Dominic Sessa, who gained attention for his lead role in “The Holdovers,” is playing the late Bourdain in “Tony,” which comes to us from A24. Turns out, he’s the real deal, an actor filled likeable charisma. This kid’s going places.
Many thought a fall release would happen for the film, but instead, A24 decided on a late-summer rollout on August 14. It’s not an ideal awards-season date, but that’s not really what Johnson is going for here. It’s important to go into the film with tempered expectations and simply let it win you over with its small-scaled charms.
“Tony” is very much a summer-feeling movie. It’s not so much a rise-and-fall biopic as it is a slice-of-life portrayal of a moment that greatly shaped Bourdain’s inevitable rise in the culinary and cultural world. The dynamic between Sessa and Antonio Banderas drives much of the drama.
The film takes place in 1976, when a young Bourdain had a life-changing experience working and living in Provincetown, Mass. It follows Bourdain, the angsty aspiring writer, as he pursues a girl who eventually draws him into the culinary world. Banderas plays a Brazilian-born restaurateur who takes the young Bourdain under his wing. Emilia Jones plays the girl he falls for.
Up next for Johnson? He just shot a film starring Finn Wolfhard that tackles the true story of a Vice editor who recruited drug mules for an international cocaine trafficking operation. Hollywood has also come knocking: he is currently developing a “Magic: The Gathering” film for Legendary.